An e-mail tracker monitors the delivery of an e-mail to the intended recipient. E-mail trackers use a digitally time-stamped record to monitor the time and date that an e-mail was received or opened, as well the internet protocol (“IP”) address of the recipient. Through an e-mail tracker, a sender ascertains whether the intended recipient received the e-mail, or if the intended recipient clicked links included in the e-mail. E-mail trackers also provide the sender of the e-mail with a delivery service notification (“DSN”): a request to the recipient's e-mail server to send the sender of the e-mail a notification about the delivery of an e-mail. The DSN is an e-mail and includes information indicating whether delivery succeeded, failed, was delayed, or whether the recipient's email server was unable to provide a receipt of delivery.
One technique for tracking the delivery characteristics of an electronic message involves the use of seed lists (e.g., a list of decoy email addresses included in a marketing organization's marketing list) to track how an internet service provider (“ISP”) handles the electronic message.
For example, a marketing organization sends a large number of potential recipients marketing electronic messages as part of a marketing campaign. These recipients can have various ISP's. Included in the e-mail addresses are seed e-mail addresses, e.g., e-mail addresses of dummy accounts at some or all of the various ISPs. By sending the marketing electronic messages to the seed email addresses, the marketing company tracks whether the targets' ISPs block or deliver the marketing electronic messages.